Jigsaw is a rather nasty chap who seemingly picks people at random and puts them in the nastiest of traps for them to prove their worth as human beings, their only crime that they have not made the most of their lives. Survival comes with a very high price, usually maiming themselves in a desperate bid for freedom and a marionette with a penchant for tricycles always seems to be mockingly close. If, dear viewer, you are still interested, then you must be a very disturbed person indeed.

Donnie Wahlberg and Dina Meyer in their hunt for the Jigsaw inadvertently find themselves involved in his twisted game, watching as a group of people struggle to escape from a house with only a few hours to live, having to pit themselves against horrible puzzles and riddles that would make The Crystal Maze look like children’s hopscotch.

Darren Lynn Bousman’s film is a nasty feast. It doesn’t have the strength of the character-driven performances of the first movie, but it does have the edge of the seat tenseness that good shockers need to work and then turns the gore factor up to 11. Morally questionable?  Definitely, but it has a lot of grim flare.

(4/5)